OT - What do you think

MagicFreebiesUK.co.uk <>
(news:vKfLc.214$) wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I posted a question yesterday and had a lot of people
> comment on the colour scheme of the site.
>
> I have been playing around today. I have changed the
> colours on the left hand side of the page to something I
> think looks a little better than the blue and white.

But... you left the normal text in that illegible blue. Yes, I think the yellow shades are adefinite improvement. I'd try using them
some more, maybe even for normal text. And I'd probably lose the grey for a:hover and replace it with the relatively dark blue
you've got for text right now.
> Just wondering what people think and if anyone has any
> better suggestions.
>
> Link is http://www.magicfreebiesuk.co.uk
>
> Thanks
> Tom

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On 20/7/04 10:01 pm, MagicFreebiesUK.co.uk wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I posted a question yesterday and had a lot of people comment on the colour
> scheme of the site.
>
> I have been playing around today. I have changed the colours on the left
> hand side of the page to something I think looks a little better than the
> blue and white.
>
> Just wondering what people think and if anyone has any better suggestions.

From your CSS file: td { font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 10px; color: #8792BD }
Don't specify font sizes in points. On some browsers it will be impossible
to resize the text. At 100 dpi, 10px is way to small for most people to read
comfortably. Anyway, why do you need to specify font sizes? I've set my
browser preferences to a size that works best well for me, so leave it
alone!

If you want a 3-column layout, get rid of that empty space at the left. And
don't try to squeeze 90% of your content into the right hand column. A lot
of visitors will never see it unless they scroll across.

Put in some meaningful headings, and try organizing your content better -- I
don't think arranging things in chronological order is a very good idea.

Your HTML is truly ugly. Look at this for example:
<a href="support.html"><font size="1">show your suppor</font></a><font
size="1">t
Did you *intentionally* close the tags before the final "t" of "support"?

What is the significance of the giant "h" at the top left?

Get rid of the hit counter. It's broken anyway.

Get rid of the mailto: link, unless you like spam. Use a feedback form
instead.

That's a little better, but still some major flaws. You're using a strange
mixture of HTML formatting and CSS formatting. For example, the links in the
top of the page don't change colour any more when I move the mouse over
them. That's because you've wrapped them inside <font size="1"
color="#FFFFCC">...</font> tags.

But really I think you should go back to basics here. Sort your freebies
into different categories (e.g., "Health & Fitness", "Entertainment",
"Holidays", etc..) and provide a separate page for each. On the home page,
just list the most recent items for each category, with a link to the
relevant page.

Use a different colour scheme. Those muted shades of blue look a bit sad to
me. If I was advertising free stuff I'd go for something a bit louder and
more fun. Lots of primary colours perhaps? At the moment it looks like an
airport arrivals board. Very un-exciting.

Look for some other websites in this category and see how they are
organized.

On Tue, 20 Jul 2004 21:01:15 GMT, MagicFreebiesUK.co.uk
<> wrote:
> Just wondering what people think and if anyone has any better
> suggestions.
>
> Link is http://www.magicfreebiesuk.co.uk

Your page took up a fixed width of space, and that width was wider than my
browser window. I'm using a 1024-pixel wide monitor. Such an incident
was not a bad thing, though, because the page was divided into three
columns. (I didn't have to scroll left and right all the time to read.)

In Opera 7.53 anyway, the font seems just barely readable. Easily
readable for me, in fact, but if it were but one pixel shorter...

In your paragraph in the middle column, that begins with "Media Transfer,"
your link and text colors are switched around. That is annoying (and not
at all visually attractive).

"Philip Ronan" <> wrote in message
news:BD2341B1.1E49B%...
> On 20/7/04 10:01 pm, MagicFreebiesUK.co.uk wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I posted a question yesterday and had a lot of people comment on the
colour
> > scheme of the site.
> >
> > I have been playing around today. I have changed the colours on the
left
> > hand side of the page to something I think looks a little better than
the
> > blue and white.
> >
> > Just wondering what people think and if anyone has any better
suggestions.
>
> From your CSS file: td { font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
> font-size: 10px; color: #8792BD }
> Don't specify font sizes in points. On some browsers it will be impossible
> to resize the text. At 100 dpi, 10px is way to small for most people to
read
> comfortably. Anyway, why do you need to specify font sizes? I've set my
> browser preferences to a size that works best well for me, so leave it
> alone!
>
> If you want a 3-column layout, get rid of that empty space at the left.
And
> don't try to squeeze 90% of your content into the right hand column. A lot
> of visitors will never see it unless they scroll across.
>
> Put in some meaningful headings, and try organizing your content better --
I
> don't think arranging things in chronological order is a very good idea.
>
> Your HTML is truly ugly. Look at this for example:
> <a href="support.html"><font size="1">show your suppor</font></a><font
> size="1">t
> Did you *intentionally* close the tags before the final "t" of "support"?
>
> What is the significance of the giant "h" at the top left?
>
> Get rid of the hit counter. It's broken anyway.
>
> Get rid of the mailto: link, unless you like spam. Use a feedback form
> instead.
>
> ... I could go on, but I have other things to do.
>
> Phil
>
> --
> Philip Ronan
>
> (Please remove the "z"s if replying by email)
>
>

"Philip Ronan" <> wrote in message
news:BD235D7C.1E4AA%...
> On 21/7/04 12:08 am, MagicFreebiesUK.co.uk wrote:
>
> > Have made some changes.
> > Do you think that it looks better now??
> > http://www.magicfreebiesuk.co.uk
> >
>
> That's a little better, but still some major flaws. You're using a strange
> mixture of HTML formatting and CSS formatting. For example, the links in
the
> top of the page don't change colour any more when I move the mouse over
> them. That's because you've wrapped them inside <font size="1"
> color="#FFFFCC">...</font> tags.
>
> But really I think you should go back to basics here. Sort your freebies
> into different categories (e.g., "Health & Fitness", "Entertainment",
> "Holidays", etc..) and provide a separate page for each. On the home page,
> just list the most recent items for each category, with a link to the
> relevant page.
>
> Use a different colour scheme. Those muted shades of blue look a bit sad
to
> me. If I was advertising free stuff I'd go for something a bit louder and
> more fun. Lots of primary colours perhaps? At the moment it looks like an
> airport arrivals board. Very un-exciting.
>
> Look for some other websites in this category and see how they are
> organized.
>
> Phil
>
> --
> Philip Ronan
>
> (Please remove the "z"s if replying by email)
>
>

"MagicFreebiesUK.co.uk" <> wrote in
news:vKfLc.214$:
> Hi,
>
> I posted a question yesterday and had a lot of people comment on the
> colour scheme of the site.
> Link is http://www.magicfreebiesuk.co.uk

As for the colors - who cares, when the page design
requires horizontal scrolling, particularly when some
of the content is off the right side of the browser
viewport. Fix the important issue first, then you
can "play" with the unimportant things like colors.

P.S.
I think the colors are terrible, not to mention
that you are making links not appear to be links,
which is a bad decision.

Why? Other than the fact that it saves a trip to the server that is?
> > As for the colors - who cares, when the page design
> > requires horizontal scrolling, particularly when some
> > of the content is off the right side of the browser
> > viewport. Fix the important issue first, then you
> > can "play" with the unimportant things like colors.
> Does the page require scrolling? On my PC and all the other PC's I have
> accessed the page - I have not required to scroll left and right. By
taking
> the "Hi" out on the left hand side, surely this has taken away that
problem
> anyway.

The classic "it works on my computer" excuse.

Hint: Perhaps Daves screen is only 800 pixles wide. There are hundreds of
millions of these out there and your site does not fit on them without
horizontal scrolling.
> If you do need to scroll - is there anyway I can fix this without taking
> content of the page??

Fix the design. Make it fluid so the width of the canvas does not matter.

Quoth the raven MagicFreebiesUK.co.uk:
> How am I making links not look like links.

I see yellow text that is sometimes a link and sometimes not. I also
see white text that is a link. All of the text - links and content -
is too small for me to read (and my eyes are good).
> I think here if you were a new visitor to the site then you
> wouldn't have much problems finding what you came for.

If I could read it, and not need to scroll horizontally, maybe.

Your light blue on dark blue is a poor choice of colour combination.
> Does the page require scrolling? On my PC and all the other PC's I
> have accessed the page - I have not required to scroll left and
> right. By taking the "Hi" out on the left hand side, surely this
> has taken away that problem anyway.

On my 800px monitor, the third column is off-screen, even when my
browser is maximized. I would guess your monitor is set at 1024px.

>
> When providing links such as this, you should include
> the trailing / so it would be:
> http://www.magicfreebiesuk.co.uk/
> or specify the full URL:
> http://www.magicfreebiesuk.co.uk/index.html
>
> As for the colors - who cares, when the page design
> requires horizontal scrolling, particularly when some
> of the content is off the right side of the browser
> viewport. Fix the important issue first, then you
> can "play" with the unimportant things like colors.
>
> P.S.
> I think the colors are terrible, not to mention
> that you are making links not appear to be links,
> which is a bad decision.
>
> --
> Dave Patton
> Canadian Coordinator, Degree Confluence Project
> http://www.confluence.org/
> My website: http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/

How am I making links not look like links. I think here if you were a new
visitor to the site then you wouldn't have much problems finding what you
came for.

I always wanted to put the latest freebies on the first page because people
can come in and out of the site quickly if they need to and if they don't
then there is still a site for them to browse around. I am adding pages all
the time.

Does the page require scrolling? On my PC and all the other PC's I have
accessed the page - I have not required to scroll left and right. By taking
the "Hi" out on the left hand side, surely this has taken away that problem
anyway.

If you do need to scroll - is there anyway I can fix this without taking
content of the page??

Then you haven't been testing properly.
On your own PC, simply 'Restore Down' your browser, then play
with various widths(and heights) - while there is always
going to be a minimum width and height beyond which a webpage
will have to require scrolling, you cannot know what size a
visitor's browser viewport will be(even if you think you know
their screen resolution), so you should be using "fluid" design.

Philip Ronan <> wrote in message news:<BD2341B1.1E49B%>...
> On 20/7/04 10:01 pm, MagicFreebiesUK.co.uk wrote:
>
> > Hi,
> >
> > I posted a question yesterday and had a lot of people comment on the colour
> > scheme of the site.
> >
> > I have been playing around today. I have changed the colours on the left
> > hand side of the page to something I think looks a little better than the
> > blue and white.
> >
> > Just wondering what people think and if anyone has any better suggestions.
>
> From your CSS file: td { font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;
> font-size: 10px; color: #8792BD }
> Don't specify font sizes in points.
||
correction: "pixels"

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